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Propose new functionalities for Decidim software

#DecidimRoadmap Designing Decidim together

Phase 1 of 1
Open 2019-01-01 - 2030-12-31
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Add nickname autofilling to the sign up form

Avatar: Open Source Politics Open Source Politics verified-badge
08/06/2022 16:39  
Accepted / In progress

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
Our clients report that many of their users do not understand the difference between name and nickname when they sign up :

  • some don’t know what to input (it can be creative out of the blue ;))
  • some feel like they are asked to input the same info twice and find it annoying
  • some will create errors by inputing special characters* or going over the limit (25)
  • Constraint not mentioned in a help text that the user discovers with an error message after sending the form

This creates unnecessary frictions at a crucial step.

Describe the solution you'd like
In order to make it easier to sign up on Decidim, we propose

  • to automatically fill the user nickname field using the name input
  • hide the nickname field on the signup form to avoid any confusion*

*(what is this second field ? why is it autofilled ?) + they can always change it later in their account settings

We propose to generate the nickname in the following way :

  • delete spaces
  • no uppercase
  • delete special characters
  • 25 characters
  • when duplacate add a number that can be incremented
  • keep 2 characters for numbers at the end

Example :

Name : Constantin Guillaume de La villardière → Nickname : constantinguillaumedela

If a other users register with the same name we’ll have :

constantinguillaumedela1

constantinguillaumedela2

.

.

constantinguillaumedela99

Describe alternatives you've considered
-

Additional context
This was tried by Platoniq on one of their instance, they told us it really helped with registration.

This proposal is part of a larger scope to improve authentication flow in Decidim. Working document here (External link).

Does this issue could impact on users private data?
No

Funded by
OSP and Angers

  • Filter results for category: Registration and Verification Registration and Verification

This proposal has been accepted and is under development

List of Endorsements

Avatar: Pokecode Pokecode verified-badge
Avatar: Lucie Grau Lucie Grau
Avatar: Ivan Vergés Ivan Vergés verified-badge
Avatar: Pierre Mesure Pierre Mesure verified-badge
Avatar: Pau Parals Pau Parals verified-badge
Avatar: Simonas Zilinskas Simonas Zilinskas
Avatar: Nil Homedes Nil Homedes verified-badge
and 4 more people (see more) (see less)
Endorsements count7
Add nickname autofilling to the sign up form Comments 16

Reference: MDC-PROP-2022-06-17029
Version number 2 (of 2) see other versions
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Source: {"body":{"en":"<p><strong>Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.</strong><br>Our clients report that many of their users do not understand the difference between name and nickname when they sign up :</p><ul><li>some don’t know what to input (it can be creative out of the blue ;))</li><li>some feel like they are asked to input the same info twice and find it annoying</li><li>some will create errors by inputing special characters* or going over the limit (25)</li><li>Constraint not mentioned in a help text that the user discovers with an error message after sending the form</li></ul><p>This creates unnecessary frictions at a crucial step.</p><p><strong>Describe the solution you'd like</strong><br>In order to make it easier to sign up on Decidim, we propose</p><ul><li>to automatically fill the user nickname field using the name input</li><li>hide the nickname field on the signup form to avoid any confusion*</li></ul><p>*(what is this second field ? why is it autofilled ?) + they can always change it later in their account settings</p><p>We propose to generate the nickname in the following way :</p><ul><li>delete spaces</li><li>no uppercase</li><li>delete special characters</li><li>25 characters</li><li>when duplacate add a number that can be incremented</li><li>keep 2 characters for numbers at the end</li></ul><p>Example :</p><p>Name : Constantin Guillaume de La villardière → Nickname : constantinguillaumedela</p><p>If a other users register with the same name we’ll have :</p><p>constantinguillaumedela1</p><p>constantinguillaumedela2</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>constantinguillaumedela99</p><p><strong>Describe alternatives you've considered</strong><br>-<br></p><p><strong>Additional context</strong><br>This was tried by Platoniq on one of their instance, they told us it really helped with registration.</p><p>This proposal is part of a larger scope to improve authentication flow in Decidim. <a href=\"https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jxHh52-gzMUFRZOiwgKHDHycMC-eH1R8ScFVJs2Dfrc/edit?usp=sharing\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"external-link-container\">Working document here&nbsp;(External link)</a>.</p><p><strong>Does this issue could impact on users private data?</strong><br>No<br></p><p><strong>Funded by</strong><br>OSP and Angers</p>"},"title":{"en":"Add nickname autofilling to the sign up form"}}

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Conversation with Carol Romero
Avatar: Carol Romero Carol Romero verified-badge
14/06/2022 13:36
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@virgile_deville we've discussed this issue with @product and the redesign team, and we agree with the autofilling of the nickname, but we have come to the conclusion that it is even better to hide that field in the registration form, and leave only:
* Name
* Password
* Email

I also talked about this with @microstudi a few days ago, and it seems that the nickname is something that matters mainly to power users and not to participants in general. So the option of autofilling but not showing it in the registration form and that you can change it later from your profile sounds good to us.

Avatar: Virgile Deville Virgile Deville
14/06/2022 14:57
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Perfect, that's what we were proposing but weren't sure you'd be aligned. All good then !

Avatar: Nil Homedes Nil Homedes verified-badge
16/06/2022 17:40
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First of all, thank you for the work done!
Regarding to this question, I would add some insights. There's an important UX pain point to take in account if we want to improve the Sign Up flow. From my experience, some users get stuck the first time they Sign in after registering.

What happen is:
1) Most of the browsers suggest saving your password when you finish the register. But users didn't realize that instead of the "email address", the browser is saving the "Name" field.
2) So, when the user come back and try to Sign In (with browser autofill enable) can't do it.
3) The email field is highlighted in red, but there isn't a clear message about what's exactly wrong.

Solutions that maybe you could consider incorporating in this set of improvements:
-Define a specific tag for "e-mail" field, so the browsers recognize it as the field to save for autofilling
-Define a clear error message like "This is not an email address. Please write a valid e-mail address" when the user writes something that is not an e-mail (without @)

Avatar: Pierre Mesure Pierre Mesure verified-badge
22/06/2022 13:32
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Great suggestion! It should be quite easy to implement!

Avatar: Virgile Deville Virgile Deville
23/06/2022 16:31
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Hello Nils !
Great suggestion we'll try to implement it inside this feature Add instant input validation on authentication forms
@simonas can you make sure of it please ?

Avatar: Pierre Mesure Pierre Mesure verified-badge
23/06/2022 17:31
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I checked the form and it seems it's already compliant so the first improvement is implemented. Maybe worth double-checking though. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Attributes/autocomplete

Avatar: Ivan Vergés Ivan Vergés verified-badge
28/06/2022 11:56
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I've implemented this along with the "view password" option: https://github.com/decidim/decidim/pull/9490

Avatar: Virgile Deville Virgile Deville
23/06/2022 15:17
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Hello @carol
Discussing this today with @microstudi and @paarals ! They've implemented a version of this feature where the nickname field remains visible. Since there are argument for hiding (unclutter the sign up form, avoid confusion related to autofill etc.) and keeping visible the field (allow user to choose easily its nickname, explain how it will be useful for mentions etc.) we decided to conduct a quick user test.

Test setup :
User profile : 26 year old women, first sign up on decidim, familiar with participatory website, saavy around computers, education Post Graduate (Msc).
User flows :
- Sign up on https://nightly.decidim.org/
- Sign up on https://decidim-signup.dev.pokecode.net/
- Sign up on https://decidim-signup.dev.pokecode.net/ with the nickname div hidden with CSS

Results :
The user found it was faster to sign up on https://decidim-signup.dev.pokecode.net/ but didn’t really notice the app was autofilling the nickname.
Once I told her she felt more confortable when the nickname field was visible so that she knows she has one and can choose to change it during signing up. 
When I asked her to find by herself how to change her nickname, she went on her public profile, the found the update profil button and change it. She said she found the sequence not very intuitive.

To conclude, I suggest we keep the nickname field visible. If admin want to change it they can just a css override : 

div > .user-nickname label {
display: none;
}

Avatar: Virgile Deville Virgile Deville
23/06/2022 15:22
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Can't edit my comment bcse of bug.
Here is the test setup I used :
- Sign up on https://nightly.decidim.org/ (normal sign up)
- Sign up on https://decidim-signup.dev.pokecode.net/ (autofil active, nickname div visible)
- Sign up on https://decidim-signup.dev.pokecode.net/ (autofil active, nickname div hidden)

Avatar: Ivan Vergés Ivan Vergés verified-badge
23/06/2022 17:38
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Thanks @virgile_deville for the test. On the other hand, as the staging system is in place, I encourage everyone to test it an give their opinion on the matter.
I personally fell like we shoudn't hide the nickname when registering, in the end is autofilled.

Avatar: álvaro ortiz álvaro ortiz verified-badge
24/06/2022 16:28
Edited
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I personally fell like we shoudn't hide the nickname when registering, in the end is autofilled.

We had a conversation with Product about this. My points:

general population (the majority of users vs. power users) may not be familiar at all with the concept of a nickname
we are not relying hardly anything on nicknames to use or navigate the app (I think it was required to use the nickname to make a mention, but I have just discovered you can also use the name)

So: if nicknames are not used for anything, and it's an alien concept to a high # of users (thinking on public sector), why bothering them in one of their first and more important interactions with something that will make them doubt? Anything that sits in their path to completing the signup as fast as possible and with the least uncertainty should be removed.

Having the nickname, even if it's autofilled, generates uncertainty and doesn't provide any value. So I see no reason to make it visible.

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